Jack McCaffery is the lead sports columnist for the Daily Times and delcotimes.com. He has spent several decades covering everything from the Phillies, Eagles, Flyers and Sixers, to college hoops, to high school sports in Delco.

Saturday, May 14, 2011

GOOD AS GOLD, 45 YEARS LATER

Add the names Istak Cop and Mirka Knapkova to rowing's Gold Challenge Cup. Each won $10,000 Saturday for winning a 2,000-meter, single-scull race at the Dad Vail Regatta, essentially making them the best individual male and female scullers in the world.

But it's the story that intrigues. And that's why it had been 45 years between Gold Cup races. The reason: The Cup had been lost. And had not Philadelphia businessman and sportsman Herb Lotman bought it and used it to help revitalize the Dad Vail, it may have remained hidden.

Don Spero was the last winner ... in 1966. "A Sherlock Holmes case," he called it.